In that time, the Sunnyvale, California-based company has managed to win business from three of the top five global wireless handset manufacturers, LG Electronics Inc, Nokia Corp and Samsung Electronics Co.
It is already profitable and recorded net income of $12.8m on revenue of $84.4m in the year to December 31. Leadis believes it is in a market with enormous growth potential. It quotes research house International Data Corp as forecasting that the number of wireless handsets sold will grow from 536 million in 2003 to 745 million in 2007.
At the same time, while 55% of wireless handsets shipped in 2003 were equipped with a color display that percentage is expected to climb to 90% in 2007.
Fabless Leadis claims it is able to create relatively quickly, power efficient, small form factor, cost-effective display drivers. It said it was the first company to commercialize single-chip display drivers for full-color organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, and its product portfolio includes color super-twisted nematic liquid crystal display and passive matrix OLED display drivers. It is also developing drivers for other major display technologies.
The company has a tiny customer base and its two major customers, Philips Mobile Display Systems, and Samsung NEC Mobile Display accounted for approximately 75.9% and 23.4% of revenue respectively, in 2003.
Leadis was formed by its current CEO Steve Ahn in 2000, who was previously general manager of the LCD driver business at Samsung. With only 60 on the payroll, Leadis keeps costs down with R&D activities in South Korea.
This article is based on material originally published by ComputerWire
